Enron and Domain Names
Story regarding Enron “whistle-blower” includes domain name scuffle.
You never know where you’ll come across a story regarding domain names and their importance.
Last Friday, as I ate breakfast at the W Hotel in Silicon Valley, I read an article regarding Lynn Brewer. Brewer was formerly with Enron and now gives talks regarding ethics. The USA Today article describes Brewer as the “whistle-blower who wasn’t”. As stated by the article, Brewer was really a lower level employee at Enron who had little to do with uncovering wrong-doing at Enron. But what caught my eye was a reference to domain names:
In her book, Brewer states that she was dissatisfied with her job on the legal briefing team and with her colleagues, so she moved to Azurix, an Enron spinoff.
There, she states, she uncovered an example of what she calls corporate espionage carried out by the firm’s CEO, Rebecca Mark, and her husband, Michael Jusbasche.
As stated by Brewer, Mark wanted to come up with a catchy Internet domain name that Azurix could use as an online trading platform for water, much as Enron had done in the field of natural gas. Azurix employees and executives brainstormed and came up with a number of potential website names, counting Waterswap.com, Watervault.com and Water2Water.com.
In one case, Brewer states, it was decided on a Friday afternoon that Azurix ought to register a particular domain name. Part of Brewer’s job was to register the site. But on the following Monday morning, when she tried to do so, Brewer learned that Jusbasche had scooped up the domain name Friday evening. Brewer informed her boss, Mends.
In an interview, Mends states he explained to Brewer that on Friday evening, Mark mentioned the domain name to her husband and Azurix’s plans to register it. Jusbasche stated the firm shouldn’t wait all weekend ahead of registering the name. Instead, he went ahead and registered it himself, through his own website, ChemicalDesk.com, to prevent an outside party from squatting on it.
Another former colleague of Brewer’s, Amanda Brock, who was known as Amanda Martin when she worked at Enron and Azurix, told USA TODAY the same thing.
Brewer saw it differently. She writes in her book that she viewed the domain-name registrations as evidence of an “ongoing criminal enterprise” in which Enron would have to pay Jusbasche for the domain names. In her public appearances, counting the NYSE speech, Brewer cites the event as an example of “espionage.”
When USA TODAY asked her for any evidence that Jusbasche had been paid off to turn over control of the domain names, Brewer’s story evolved. In one interview, she stated Diane Bazelides, head of communications at Azurix, had told her that Jusbasche had been paid. USA TODAY contacted Bazelides, who denied ever making such a statement. In a follow-up interview, Brewer stated it wasn’t Bazelides who’d made the assertion, but someone in the accounting department whose name she couldn’t recall.
Corporate espionage? I helped my wife’s firm get an notable domain name by backordering it for them. Had I not done that, someone else would have snapped up the domain when it expired. It wasn’t espionage; it was smart business.
But this case highlights the point that firm’s need to have processes and procedures in place to register and manage domain names.
